Sky Atlant Mi-26

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The end of the sixties was the time of the most rapid development of Soviet heavy transport aviation. This process was determined both by the military doctrine in force at that time and by the needs of the national economy. As it turned out later, the need for such heavy transport vehicles still exists, and not only in Russia, but also in other countries, on almost all continents.

The Mi-26 helicopter was originally conceived as a deeply modernized version of the time-tested and very good Mi-6 rotorcraft, but already in the process of being developed by the engineers of the design bureau M. L. Mile, it became clear that in order to fulfill all the conditions of the terms of reference, a completely new aircraft would have to be developed.

The design bureau already had experience in building "flying cranes", on its account there were such masterpieces of the world aircraft industry as the Mi-12, Mi-8, Mi-10 and the already mentioned Mi-6. Now it was up to you to transcend your own level.

With a large selection of schemes, KB them. Mile and General Designer Smirnov settled on the now traditional single-rotor. The approval of the preliminary project passed at the end of 1971.

Simultaneously with the launch of design and developmentwork on the helicopter, and the development of a turboshaft engine began. The Progress design bureau was engaged in it, and the power of each of the two engines provided for by the Mi-26 scheme was to exceed 11 thousand horsepower.

Such a force also needed special gearboxes, which, contrary to tradition, the aviation workers took on on their own. The operation of the entire power plant was controlled by an automatic stabilizing system of propeller speed and power synchronization.

To lighten the 32-meter eight-blade propeller of the Mi-26 helicopter, it was made of metal-plastic, and the sleeve was made of titanium. The tail rotor received fiberglass blades. The result of all these efforts was the relatively low weight of the huge machine, it corresponded to the mass of the Mi-6 with the volume of the cargo compartment and the carrying capacity twice that of it.

The air intakes were protected from dust, and operation and ground handling were made as easy as possible, in particular, the tail boom was equipped with a special passage so that technicians, if necessary, could work without dismantling the skin.

The first prototype of the Mi-26 left the stocks of the cost center in the city of Panki in the autumn of 1977, and already in December it took off, for a start for three minutes. First long flight two months later went well.

At the International Aerospace Show in Le Bourget in 1981, the Mi-26 made a splash. It became the largest helicopter in the world, and its design was so ahead of its time that it remains so to this day. The giant's carrying capacity is 20 tons.

The most difficult and sometimes dangerous work is entrusted to these machines. They had to cut through the radioactive air of Chernobyl, under fire to take out refugees from the burning Karabakh, to sail in the hot Afghan sky. Tajikistan, and Chechnya, and Yugoslavia, and Cambodia did not pass it. Painted white with the letters "UN" on board, Mi-26s have been in other hot spots: Burundi, Somalia, East Timor.

This giant has always performed unique rescue and transport work. If an airplane or helicopter makes an emergency landing, then an Mi-26 is called in to deliver it to the repair site. A photo in which he carries an American Chinook under him, a Boston bomber from the war or a Be-12 floatplane is always of interest, because no other rotorcraft in the world can do this.